


Chances

by sansakatara



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Declarations Of Love, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Soulmates, i still suck at coming up with titles lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansakatara/pseuds/sansakatara
Summary: Sansa and Jeyne love each other with all the devotion of two girls- one whose sisters died in the cradle while the other was not close with the sister she had.
Relationships: Jeyne Poole/Sansa Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Chances

I.  
Sansa and Jeyne love each other with all the devotion of two girls, one whose sisters died in the cradle while the other was not close with the sister she had.   
Sansa and Jeyne love each other, although the world does not let them forget who they are. The world never lets them forget that Sansa is the eldest daughter of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn Stark. Jeyne is the only daughter of Vayon Poole, Winterfell’s steward. A respectable position, but a steward nonetheless. Jeyne knows any match she makes will not equal that of Sansa’s, promised to the heir of the Vale.   
Sansa and Jeyne love each other freely and without restraint, until Riverrun.

Lord Stark and his wife travel to Riverrun with their four youngest for a Tully wedding, their eldest Robb remaining in Winterfell. Still feeling giddy on the wine and revelry of the celebrations, Jeyne later steals into Sansa’s bed. Arya is in the same room, curled up in the bed that is closest to the door, but her peaceful snores assure the girls she’s fast asleep.  
They are whispering and giggling, and then, it ceases when Jeyne kisses Sansa. They’ve kissed before, but they had been small girls then, a little older than Rickon is now perhaps. Practise, they had told themselves, as they exchanged swift, clumsy kisses. Except Jeyne is now sixteen, and she wants to kiss Sansa for herself. The gods must have granted her courage, because Jeyne is not brave. The thought of speaking to a room full of people, however brief, like she had seen Lord Eddard do makes her stomach flip. Winterfell’s crypts unnerve her, even though she knew Sansa sometimes used to play down with her siblings.   
Sansa breaks away from the kiss first. She is silent, and Jeyne feels herself grow cold. “Sansa, please say something.”  
“Jeyne, I….” It is as if words and Sansa have become strangers. When Jeyne had kissed her, it hadn’t felt wrong. But they could not hide behind being little girls anymore. They were older now, and Sansa was betrothed. Helplessness gawned at her stomach at this realization; this inability to reconcile these two truths.  
“Jeyne, you should not have done that.” Sansa’s voice was gentle but still low, mindful that Arya was in the room with them. But the light of the moon from the open window was bright enough to illuminate Jeyne’s face, and she looked as though Sansa had slapped her. She gave a strangled cry, and then left Sansa alone as she fled from the room.

II.  
It takes three days of Jeyne avoiding her until Sansa confronts her. They will be leaving soon, and Sansa does not want to return North without putting this to rest.  
She finds Jeyne alone in Riverrun’s library.  
“Jeyne, please. I can’t bear for you not to speak to me.”  
Jeyne’s voice is cool and polite. “You seem to bear it well when your sister doesn’t.”  
Sansa scoffed. “Arya is my sister. She’s always annoyed with me about something. But you’re my friend, Jeyne. We hardly ever fight.”  
“Yes, friend.” Jeyne repeats. “You’ve made that clear the night of your uncle's wedding.”  
Sansa blushes. “Jeyne, forgive me. I’m just confused.”  
She turns away for a moment. “I’m confused because I understand a part of me realizes you shouldn’t have kissed me like that. What if my mother had walked in? Or Arya had woken up?” Jeyne’s face blanches. “But,” Sansa takes a deep breath before continuing. “But there’s another part of me that’s confused as to why I didn’t hate you kissing me, even though I knew we are too old for kissing games. I don’t know what it means.”

Sansa feels Jeyne’s hand cup her cheeks. Her hands are so soft. “Perhaps we can find the answer together.”  
When they kiss again, Sansa does not break away.  
III.  
The answer comes over time, in the next two years. Sansa writes Jeyne a poem, that Jeyne folds up to keep safe in the locket that once belonged to her mother. She wears the locket daily, to keep Sansa’s sweet words close. Lord Eddard sometimes invites one of his household to sup with him and his family. On the occasions that Jeyne and Vayon are honoured with such an invitation, Jeyne would tune out her father’s voice while he talked about bread stores, as she smiled knowingly at Sansa. They try to find whatever spot of Winterfell’s that they can. The library, in the godswood, or the rookery, and make it theirs.  
Two years pass, and Sansa remains promised to Harry Arryn. A cousin of Sansa, the son of Elbert Arryn and her Tully aunt. Jeyne only vaguely remembers Lysa Arryn on that visit to Riverrun, but what she does remember was a contented woman whose life was her husband and son. Sansa and Jeyne avoid talking about Sansa’s intended, although Jeyne is aware that Sansa does write to him. Jeyne does not like to think of what Sansa writes in those letters. But with Lord Elbert and Lady Lysa dying within days of each other and Sansa’s eighteenth name-day, Jeyne knows Sansa must begin the life she was promised for since she was ten.  
That night before Sansa and Harry will speak their vows, Sansa and Jeyne both go to bed early. Sansa had told her mother that she was nervous, and thought perhaps Jeyne’s presence would soothe her.   
“They say the Vale’s beautiful.” Jeyne says softly.  
“It is.” Sansa’s hands stroke Jeyne’s arm. “Harry says the Vale will be made even more so by my presence.”  
Jeyne grits her teeth. “I don’t want to speak about him.” She knows it’s partly her fault for bringing up the Vale, but she can’t help it.  
Sansa lifts Jeyne’s hand and kisses it gently. “I’m sorry, Jeyne.”  
But Jeyne feels angry now, and perhaps her anger gives way to the courage that had possessed her all that time ago in Riverrun. “We could leave.”  
Sansa was lost for a moment. “What?”  
“Leave. We’ll – We’ll run away, maybe Bravvos or somewhere. Somewhere where people don’t know who we are. We could be happy, you and me.” Jeyne’s voice is rapturous, and for a moment Sansa allows herself to be swept up in this sweet dream. But that’s all it could be, a dream.  
“My love, you speak folly. I have a duty to my house, and to Harry. And if we left, there is no way we could return because of the scandal it would cause, the daughter of Lord Stark running off with a steward’s girl.  
You remember that my aunt was taken by Prince Rhaegar? There are those who whisper she went willingly, and that shadow has hung over my father. I would only be making it worse.” Jeyne is resolute in the face of Sansa’s gentle pleas, but it is the mention of Vayon Poole that makes her yield. “And what about your father, Jeyne? You wouldn’t be able to see him again.” Every word Sansa speaks now is agonising, but it is necessary.  
Jeyne nods, her eyes shining with tears. “I understand. It was a moment of folly, that’s all.”  
“Jeyne, I’m sorry.”  
Jeyne takes Sansa’s hand in her own. “Don’t be. It’s just that from tomorrow, you’ll be his. You’ll be his lady and give him sons if the Mother is good. He will get to love you openly, like I never could. But tonight, I just want you to be mine.”  
When they kiss, Sansa wonders if this night with Jeyne will be enough to sustain her all the nights of her marriage.  
IV.

During the first year of marriage, Sansa gives her husband a son, little Hugo. It is a good thing that Sansa finds joy in her son, because there is little to be found with her husband. Sansa wonders if part of this is her failing , wonders if she has prevented building something good with Harry, because she had given away her heart a long time ago; leaving nothing behind for Harry but stone. But it was the second year of their marriage that Sansa understood that Harry had his own ghosts.   
The serving girl does not notice Sansa as she slips out of Harry’s bedchambers one morning. Sansa is half-tempted to speak up, but she would probably frighten the girl to death.  
She makes her way into Harry’s bedchambers. She thinks idly how her father and mother had also possessed different chambers, and that Lord Eddard had never shamed his lady by using his rooms in such a way.   
He shamed her in other ways, though.   
“I hope you have not tired Mandy out.” Sansa says politely, as way of introduction. Sitting up amongst the covers, realization dawns on Harry’s face. “My Lady, I’m sorry- “  
“My lord, please.” Sansa knows it is rude to interrupt, but perhaps it would be forgivable for this occasion.

“I am not angry at you. My father is the most honourable man I know, but my half-brother is proof that he like all men, will stray from his wife’s bed. I’ve long accepted that it could be the same for us. All I can ask is that you keep your dalliances discreet for my sake. I will not be treated like that of Queen Naerys. You make sure that whatever girl you are intimate with is given moon tea. If you do sire a bastard, you will see to that child’s needs, but you will send both mother and child away. I will not be like my mother.” Sansa is surprised by the intensity in her voice.  
Harry nods, and it feels like a victory. “Agreed.”  
The conversation could have ended there, but in spite of herself Sansa feels compelled to ask him this.  
“Do you… do you love her?” She is genuinely curious.  
Harry shakes his head. “She warms my bed, that’s it.” Harry locks eyes with Sansa. “I did love someone.” He said softly, and his face looked pained. “But I was promised to another.”  
“You were promised to me.” Sansa feels her heart twist in sympathy for her lord husband. “I understand my lord, perhaps better than you realize. I loved someone else as well.” I love her still.  
Perhaps it was this odd, unflinching honesty between her and Harry, the first time they were truly vulnerable with one another, that changes things for them. The next six years sees the birth of their twin children, Brynden and Teora. Duty and their children bound them together, but they have become good friends nonetheless.  
V.

When Hugo is eight and the twins six, Harry dies suddenly in his sleep. His heart had just stopped, was their Maester’s prognosis.  
As Sansa suddenly finds herself becoming Lady regent for her son, her thoughts keep coming back to Jeyne. Sansa had been back to Winterfell twice in the years she married, but it was as though she and Jeyne were strangers, rather than – what they were.  
Sansa realizes it might do to marry again, but it is the last thing she wants.  
What she does want – or who, is in the North.

VI.  
“Who’s it from?” Jeyne asks, as the letter is handed to her.  
“Lady Sansa.”  
Jeyne’s breath catches in her throat at the mention of Sansa’s name. For eight years, she has tried not to think of Sansa in the Vale, with her lord husband and children. When they had guested at Winterfell, Jeyne had wanted so desperately to reach out to Sansa, but the realization she would only be making things worse that held her back.

Dear Jeyne,  
Perhaps you will have learnt by now that my husband is dead.  
Harry was a good man. Although ours was never a love match, we came to an understanding.  
But it is his death that has made me realize something.  
Jeyne, I have never stopped loving you. When you proposed to run away that night, I cannot tell you how tempted I was. But I had a duty to my betrothed, and my father. But Harry is dead now, and I have given him three heirs. The Lords of the Vale cannot pressure me into marrying again when the line is well secure. I want to make my own choices now. Jeyne, my father gave my hand in marriage to Harry but it is I alone that give you my heart. Be mine, Jeyne. Come to the Vale.  
Yours,  
Sansa

Trembling, Jeyne read the words over and over again.  
At first, she is overwhelmed with joy. But it is the thought of her father which gives her pause. It would mean leaving him, and for the past eight years, Jeyne's father had become her world, as she had assisted him in his duties. He had tried arranging a match for her, but Jeyne had refused.  
She has never stopped loving Sansa, but just as Sansa had put her duty towards her father first, Jeyne needed to do the same.

However, Vayon had other ideas.  
"I heard you got a raven from Sansa today," Vayon said quietly, as they ate in Winterfell's Great Hall.  
"Yes." Jeyne folds her hands in her lap. "Lord Arryn has passed recently, and she invited me to stay in Vale."  
Her father raises his eyebrow. "An honour. I remember how close you were as girls. I never understood why you didn't go with her in the first place, Jeyne. It would have been good for you." 

Jeyne shrugs. "It is. But-" Jeyne's voice falters. "I don't know if I can accept it."

However, Vayon takes Jeyne's hands in his own. "Aye Jeyney, if you're worried about your old Papa, don't be. Lord Stark always looks after his people. But you- I don't want to stop you being with someone you love."  
Jeyne could fancy that her father means the innocent love of friends, but his knowing look made Jeyne's heart thud. "How..."

:"I think a part of me always suspected. You were always so close, like I said. The day Lady Sansa was married, I remember how sad you looked. At first, I thought you mourned your friend leaving, but when you refused that boy, I pieced it together. To be truthful," Her father pauses, and brushes back a strand of wavy hair that he would sometimes say had been a legacy of Jeyne's mother. "I was glad in a selfish kind of way. I didn't have the means to make you a great match. But Jeyney, life only gives you so many chances at happiness. Don't miss out on yours."

VII.

When Sansa reads Jeyne's answer, her smile is bright as the setting sun.


End file.
